


The Prunesquallor's New Aide

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Gormenghast (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-18
Updated: 2006-12-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 06:39:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1636943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Story by Maud</p><p>Steerpike, having arrived at the Prunesquallor's residence, is full of intent to advance his position.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Prunesquallor's New Aide

**Author's Note:**

> My apologies for not realising sooner that you hadn't read the actual book - I do hope you don't find the style somewhat tedious as a result, as I was attempting to imitate its ponderousness!  
> Merry Christmas, or seasonal holiday of your choice.
> 
> Written for Ravenbell

 

 

Had anyone else been awake to see it, they might have found some source of confusion in the faint green glow, alternating flickering and fading, which lit the tiny, crooked pane of a tiny window tucked beneath the roof of the red house, like eerie flames trapped behind frosted lamp-glass. The glow was persistent, and an observer might have watched with some interest as a sudden shower of sparks erupted, changing from green to an angry red before it died away.

There was no one else to see. The house, its deep red sandstone anomalous in the otherwise grey, rain-streaked brickwork of the rest of the square, stood at the further edge of a courtyard sleek with water, and utterly deserted. It had been raining for several days without cessation. From the window of the dusty, cramped attic room, which for some time now had been the adopted lair of Steerpike quite unbeknown to his employers, he could see the tallest minaret on the far side of the square, towering several hundred feet above its neighbours. An oil-slicked rainbow of water slithered steeply down the tiled roof, collecting at the edges until the pools froze to vicious, jagged spikes of ice. Lacquer and varnish melted away where the rain scraped it, dyeing the transparent crystal shards with shades of emerald and gold and a deep bloodied crimson.  The mist-wreathed peak of Gormenghast Mountain rose steeply in the distance, beyond the corroding towers.

Since his precipitous arrival at the doctor's house, several weeks before, Steerpike had systematically set about ingratiating himself into the quotidian routine of the brother and sister and their distinctly lacklustre domestic staff. The swarthy-skinned manservant, whose wrinkled and grease-spotted livery had not, to Steerpike's extensive knowledge, been either changed or otherwise attended to since his arrival, was supposed to fulfil the role of general aide to the doctor as well as directing the daily operations below-stairs, but his progress during any such activity was distinctly hampered by an appalling memory - on one memorable occasion, presenting the doctor with a brimming goblet of seething scarlet acid in lieu of the anticipated spiced port, having been asked to supply the former item some hour previously - as well as a pronounced limp. From the day of Steerpike's unexpected introduction to this individual, the manservant had treated him with barely-veiled contempt, making every effort to quell this impudent creature's equally obvious disdain for Proper Service, "such as I have been privileged to provide, young man, since many years before your festering existence was even contemplated! And let me tell you", he'd added, having discovered Steerpike in the process of removing the mildewed patches from Irma's black satin dress on the morning after his arrival, "that Miss Prunesquallor is a Lady of Quality! A Kitchen Brat has no touch place to touch even the hem of her... her..." A spluttering pause had ensued, in which it was apparent that even the attempt to name the most modest of garments in which Irma might choose to clothe herself was quite beyond the bounds of expected decency.

"Then whose place is it?" Steerpike had queried, pausing in his ministrations to gaze almost sweetly at the speechless man.

"Arr?"  
"Whose place is it, to provide such services to your excellent lady? It cannot, I must suppose, fall to anyone currently in the house to enjoy such lofty status, when such lamentable neglect may be instantly detectable by even this confessedly humble stranger - one would be forced to conclude your own suitability as insufficient as you deem mine".

The manservant had snorted then with such violence that the resulting convulsions of his bony hands and feet caused the shelves of glass in the cabinet beside him to rattle alarmingly. Retreating amidst audible, outraged muttering, he had left Steerpike in possession of the field, represented that morning by the otherwise-deserted Stygian gloom of the smallest scullery, and a bottle of all-purpose cleaner. Steerpike suspected the man had lice. The subject of status had not been raised again.

Within a matter of hours Steerpike had persuaded the doctor to undertake his initiation into the chemist's craft, and had watched with something approaching interest as Prunesquallor began to expound upon the contents of each glass case and row of specimen jars. It was equally apparent, also, from the doctor's unskilled attempts at dissimulation, where he kept the more dangerous, even lethal, chemicals, which he had no intention for his high-shouldered new assistant to discover. It had been the work of moments, at the earliest convenient opportunity, for Steerpike to pick the pathetically-inadequate lock and trip the catch of the concealed panel behind which Prunesquallor kept his poisons.

It was one of these, a tincture originally of a sickly yellow shade, which had reacted so unexpectedly when Steerpike attempted to mix it with a spoonful of dull blue powder. The resulting green haze, and subsequent sparks, suggested the experiment had not been a success. The bottom of the phial had melted into a twisted bubble of smoke-streaked glass.

Steerpike's dull red eyes squinted through the dissipating haze. He sighed. For some days now, following the overwhelming success of his assault on Irma's previous standards of domestic comfort - that good lady now found her dresses pristinely pressed, her house pleasantly warm, her front door answered with serpentine alacrity - he had been considering the effect of attempting to consolidate his position further with judicious application of certain home-made melanges, of sinister provenance. Although Irma's pleasure in her new domestic comfort was obvious to all, Prunesquallor himself still exhibited signs of surprise when his pale-skinned assistant responded to a summons some half-hour before he had learned to expect the original man, and, more concerning, could occasionally be seen to regard Steerpike's presence in his laboratory with a grudging suspicion doubtless born of distrust for the youth's effortless assimilation into his daily routines. Hope for advance lay plainly with Irma.

Steerpike had toyed with the idea of concocting an illusive potion, one that would fill her empty head with an intricate tapestry of thickly-woven threads, like dense lace. These threads would tangle and entwine themselves with the tiny twinkling specks of dust and molecule which comprised Irma's limited intelligence, until they were neatly tied and choked into devoted acquiescence. He could be her master, master of her thoughts and of her choices, of her every waking moment and - Here, the attractiveness of this solution faltered. For whilst a considerable appeal could be found in the vision of an Irma in the daylight mundanity of her house and her familial influence upon Prunesquallor, now his to command, with the fading of the daylight faded also the appeal of Irma's thin white limbs and cloying adoration, convinced that his masterful presence should remain within mere inches of her person during all the hours of darkness as well. A half-formed premonition of Miss Prunesquallor's bewitched, frigidly-clean limbs vainly attempting to entwine with his own was met with some revulsion - a reaction which came as some surprise, given Steerpike's usually uncanny ability to pursue an activity without any appreciation, let alone understanding. He had watched her through the bathroom wall, through a discreet aperture positioned carefully behind the carved bunch of fruit spilling from the cornucopia of a small, slightly obscene plaster cherub which, on an architectural whim or even that of the doctor himself, had been placed providentially adjacent to the room's silver mirror. Steerpike had spent a delicate half-hour whittling around the outside of a single grape - from the perspective thus offered he could see not only the unbearably scrawny, chalk-pale skin stretched almost to snapping-point across the hollow iron column of Irma's spine and her monumental neck, but also the reflection of her naked front. The flesh, as smooth and delicately-veined as age-mottled marble, had again been the cause of an unexpected wave of nausea. Physical contact was not to be thought of - and the potions which might otherwise have had such satisfactory results could not be guaranteed to exclude this unsavoury potential.

Instead, Steerpike persuaded the doctor to give a party for his sister's birthday. Having spent endless hours in discussions concerning the guest-list, which was to encompass as many of Prunesquallor's higher-class patients as were capable of recalling his existence beyond their annual appointments, and further hours planning the most minute detail of cut-glass goblet and place-setting, Irma developed such intense stage fright upon the clanging doorbell's announcement of the first guest that she fled to the shelter of a china-closet adjoining the drawing-room, from where the best efforts of her brother and an urbanely-frustrated Steerpike quite failed to coax her out. The doctor, already worn out with the patience required to tolerate Irma's social machinations in the previous days, fled to answer the door himself (the manservant having been locked in the pantry by Steerpike, in order that no hint of domestic turmoil be allowed to spoil the guests' appreciation for his considerable efforts), and ushered Mr and Mrs Leopold Mordant into the drawing-room, pleading a few more moments grace for the completion of his sister's extensive toilette. (They were followed, shortly, by Miss Steeple, Mr Grouse, Mr and Mrs Pantrimime - accompanied, to Prunesquallor's horror, by their adenoidal, giggling daughter Myrtle - and, with considerable effort required to facilitate the passage of her ample girth and sweeping skirts through the slender doorway, the magisterial bulk of Mrs Anathema Spooner. These, and several other guests, bemused by the doctor's social ineptitude in answering his own doorbell, and even more so by their absent hostess, gathered in the drawing-room. A buzz of meaningless chatter gradually arose, punctuated by the occasional giggle from Miss Pantrimime. Prunesquallor, growing more and more flustered as his sister failed to appear, served each guest himself, and made the occasional comment about the capriciousness of the fairer sex's devotion to their attire - none of which were well-received by the majority of his elaborately-clad audience).

Steerpike, meanwhile, his lips aligned to the key-hole of the china-closet's door - fortunately concealed from the view of the drawing-room's occupants by a fold in the wall - had continued to remonstrate with the reluctant Irma, whose breathing could be heard escaping in ragged gasps from the other side, accompanied by an unpleasant scrape of rattling crockery.

"Your guests are arriving, my lady. The party is poised for your appearance - it cannot begin until you sweep out amongst them and dazzle them all with your costume. You must not deprive these so-eager individuals of the presence they are so eager to behold!" he murmured. "Do you think they have only come to see the Doctor? Illustrious though your fine brother may be, it is not his person they have come to admire - they may see him at any time, if they only wish to consult his medical expertise. No, my lady, it is your arrival they are so anxious to behold - and your quite unnecessary anxiety deprives them of it!"

Irma's response remained inaudible. Her corset, whose tension had not been improved by the addition of the carefully-folded fabric with which she had attempted to augment her pitifully-meagre bosom, was so tightly laced that speech, even before the additional strain of her precipitous flight, proved problematic. Steerpike once again grasped the handle of the closet door and, when it failed to yield, began to pick the lock with a curled piece of wire he removed from his pocket.

"No! You shall not reveal me! I am not fit to be seen!!" squealed Miss Prunesquallor, having been prodded uncomfortably by the length of wire which had appeared through the keyhole. "I am undone! I cannot face the humiliation of being seen in public after such inadequate preparation - you know there was a tear! a tear! in the hem of my skirt - my brother pays no attention to the importance of such things, but my dishevelment would be instantly, I say instantly apparent to even the blindest of my guests! And Bernard would have me parade myself in a state of such undress - no one knows what I suffer! Oh! O! you are tickling me..." A strangely metallic ripple, which Steerpike judged correctly to be Irma's attempt at involuntary laughter, burst from the keyhole and echoed around the room, to the distinct alarm of several guests.

Steerpike pointed out that he had mended the tear himself, as well as overseeing the construction of a new over-gown which entirely concealed even the location of the offending rip. Irma whimpered, then continued to giggle as the wire found its way into the crevice where her bodice adjoined the tightly-fitting sleeve.

With a final twist, the lock gave way, revealing Miss Prunesquallor bent double like a satin right-angle at the bottom of the closet, her crimson gown now covered with dust and her elaborately powdered face streaked with tears. At the sight of Steerpike, now straightening himself in preparation to draw the emotional lady to her feet, she shrieked, grasped the edge of the nearest shelf and hauled herself upright, fleeing into the main half of the room in full view of her astonished guests.  
Steerpike, taking advantage of the brief space in which everyone was too stunned to move, sighed and stepped neatly into the closet, closing the door upon himself. To the amazement of her brother, Irma swayed upon her narrow feet like a wading bird and blinked ferociously at her bemused audience, several of whom were not even aware that this grotesquely-unkempt newcomer was none other than their hostess. Mrs Spooner raised her gold-handled lorgnette and peered through it, etching every detail of Irma's ghastly apparel upon her memory in order that it be possible to regale her daughter at the earliest opportunity; Mr Grouse choked upon his twelfth pickled shrimp. Miss Pantrimime giggled.

"Bernard!" his sister had wailed, "what is this?! How could you, I say how could you be so unfeeling as to invite these, these people into my drawing-room on such a day as this? Don't you know it's my, my" her face screwing up in a further burst of grief, "my birthday?!"

Ignoring her brother's bewildered expression, and the ripple of muffled laughter beginning to spread around the room, Irma picked her way to the opposite door and wrenched it open, having trodden on the gout-ridden toes of Mr Mordant and tipped the contents of his wife's glass down her dress in her the course of her passage. As various wails erupted from the guests, and Prunesquallor's voice rose in an attempt to halt his sister's audible flight down the hall, there was no one to hear Steerpike's suddenly helpless laughter.

Recalling this episode beside the ruins of his experiment some weeks later, he recalled how he had remained in the closet for some time, until, judging that the doctor had left the room, had quietly unlatched the door and begun to circulate amongst the shell-shocked occupants of the drawing-room, ushering them in search of further food and drink as if nothing untoward had occurred. In the aftermath of Irma's disgrace, she had remained in her room for three days; the doctor had received several outraged complaints from those present at the aborted party, including a bill for the cleaning of Mrs Mordant's dress, and a frigidly-polite note of thanks from Mrs Spooner, (whose enjoyment of the spectacle itself was tripled by the number of people she was able to tell afterwards, and who was quite prepared to thank the doctor for unwittingly arranging it). There had also been, to Prunesquallor's considerable annoyance, several postscripts praising the diligence and quiet subservience of his new assistant, none of which had been shown to Steerpike but which he soon discovered in the second secret drawer of the doctor's office.

The evening, Steerpike concluded, had been a disaster through no fault of his own. There was no more to be gained here, from Irma's etiolated anxiety to her brother's pompous procrastinations. He knew himself, with his extreme talents, to be capable of conquering far more sophisticated subjects.

It was on the following morning that he met the Twins.

 

 

 


End file.
